Lucien Lachance: A Poem
by GronHatchat
Summary: Lucien Lachance. You know his name, and you know what he is. This story, of course, is fully aware of this aspect. Written here is only a speculated origin to some of the more terrible events concerning Lachance. Days before the Brotherhood... days when he killed for simple pleasure, and nothing else. Lucien Lachance is searching for an Argonian hunter, a marked man. Blood flows.


_ He used to enjoy the snow. Used to admire the way that it persisted in its entirety, testing men and women alike with its presence that, though unwanted, was deeply desired by all of them. It persisted as rain did, and you always wondered as to how it did it. How could one sky hold so much rain? How could clouds bear the burden of the frozen waters and release them in an almost endless decoration to the world below? Persistence. Always, it had been persistence, a lack of fear on their part. The weather knew that it owned the world. Kingly attitude, knowing you could take the entire world by its horns and show it your power by forming a state of rulership. You were power, in form. _

_ He was watching the snow now, and thinking back to these old thoughts. He hated the snow, of course, now. There was no doubt about it. The snow was a bitter enemy, and it was not because of its cold. Rather, it was because of its warmth. It brought on memory, and good memory, at that. It brought on child-like fantasies, and family outgoings in a laughter-oriented sort of way. But that was a degradation. There was no place for the warmth of snow, in the heart of a glacier who knew not the meaning anymore. What was happiness, anyway? How did you identity it, how did you know it? Happiness was a personal matter. That is not always for the best, either. Sometimes, there is good happiness, and there is evil happiness. You had to discover for yourself just what kind of happiness you would find, and determine as to whether or not it was good, or evil. _

_ He knew, of course, the identity of his own happiness. Evil, yes? Evil had always been a favorite word of the people. They had formed an intimate relationship with identification because it gave them a form of superiority. Without superiority, you lacked control, and without control, people would be free to do as they pleased. The trouble was: sometimes, control was very much needed. People belittled the Church for trying to "rule over hearts and show beliefs down the throats of society", and yet, few could argue that without the guidelines and commands set down by the Divine, society could ever truly flourish. Was it true "shoving of beliefs" to say that murder or theft was wrong, and destructive at that?_

_ He knew the answer to that question. But long ago, he, as a glacier, had chosen to defy that which was meant to be good. He had chosen to fight the control, and merely live as he desired, accepting consequence wherever it may claim him (for only the foolish could dearly say that to live as one's own protected you from consequence). You had to embrace it willingly, the good consequences and the bad. Your own choices laid out the story, your mentality, the ink. If you made a mistake, there was nothing to shield you from that mistake unless you chose to do so. Unless you chose to hide. _

_ He had been running. Hiding, for the longest time. And it never truly ended. Lucien Lachance was both a fool, and a completely inset wise man of his time. He knew the consequences, and knew them well, but embraced them for what they were: a biological assimilation to the evil results on both a mental and spiritual scale. Talos remained in mind, but Sithis… oh, Sithis…_

_ Oh, Sithis… what have you done?_

When he stumbled into the Hangman's Laughter, on that warm Last Seed night, the sun bearing down in a flattering way about the dense swamp that surrounded the Argonian pub, even against the night's protection, he knew that the consequences that were fixing to arise would be most negative. But how could he care? Night and fire could never truly be apart: not once you discovered the passion of the night. Not when you discovered just how deadly it could be, and to what purpose it could serve.

Passion came in many forms.

The interior was exactly what would you would expect in a typical Argonian setting: the interior was alit with blue flames contained inside of fine glass lamps that were strewn across the ceiling. The floor was padded, pressed dirt, very soft underfoot, as you were required to take off any shoes you may be wearing while inside. Tables were isolated, contained inside of large, barrel-like mini-rooms, most unusual looks of privacy booths. Along the wall, contained within glass, hundreds of tiny, most brilliantly colored fish swam playfully about, their tanks illuminated by some powerful magical light that glowed a bright blue, like the lamps. The entire room looked as if it were shrouded with the Night-Eye spell.

At this time of night, well past midnight, there were few Argonians littering the pub's about. There were two late-dwellers swiveling around their spinning chairs in one of the concealed booths, but other than them, the only other two life-forms besides the fish in the tanks was an elderly Argonian, light green in his coloration, who worked behind the bar, and a younger, scarlet colored Argonian who sat before the bartender, drinking in deeply a honey-flavored ale in silence.

The bartender did notice the man who walked inside, but paid him little mind other than a small smile, an acknowledging nod. The man hidden beneath the travelling cloak, frayed as it was, his featured weather-worn from his travels, smiled nonetheless in return. The cloak was maroon in color, and golden rope adorned his waist, holding him together, for he looked so worn and battered that the rope could easily pass as something that held together this stitch-doll of a man. He carried on his back a heavy bag, and inside of it clanked many metallic things, by sound. Pots and pans and jugs. The usual essentials. He set the bag down lightly on a chair a few ways down from the scarlet Argonian, breathing with relief and looking contented at being free of the burden of the bag, at least for a short time. He sat comfortably onto the padded chair, and tilted his head at the bartender.

"May I help you?" the old lizard asked him kindly, knowing a broken, or at least battered, soul, when he saw one. He himself had once looked just like the man sitting before him. People wore their hearts in their eyes. This man's eyes… were so cold. So empty. So lifeless. And yet there was the tiniest spark in there… and that spark made him feel nervous. But nevertheless, the man's smile was calm.

"You have a sign outside, renting out a room in the basement. Is that sign out there aged?"

"As a matter of fact, it's been up for only a week. I didn't expect to find someone interested so quickly."

"Must be the Divines, huh? Or the _Hist_?" he emphasized, smiling to himself. The Argonians idolized the Hist. Appeal to them with their own religion. The old Argonian nodded.

"Indeed, something has dearly touched you, friend. I'm renting it out for thirty septims a day. Are you sure you can afford it?" the Argonian asked skeptically, unable to divert all focus from the man's raggedness. The traveller chuckled, though lowly.

"I think so," he murmured, reaching into his pocket and producing a handful of gold, which he slapped rather hard onto the surface of the bar. Coins ruled in every direction but the traveller moved his hands fast, slapping them lightly before they could escape onto the floor. He produced one more handful of gold and dropped it softly onto the first pile. The Argonian sitting down the way looked over for a brief second, his eyes narrowing. A look of wonder…

The elderly Argonian suddenly looked much happier about this newest customer. Gold always had a way of bringing him the right kind of smile. He scooped up the large amount into hand and began to count it hungrily. At least sixty pieces of gold, by the looks of it. The Argonian looked up in amazement.

"Why?"

"Because I'm feeling generous," the traveller offered, tossing a septim up and down within hand. "Gold. As pure as it comes. Testing man for his ability to withstand animal nature or else succumb to the desires his flesh and corrupted mind pursues. Is it filth, that allows man to desire to have gold, if only to provide the appropriate luxuries in their life to hide their stench?"

"Eh?" the elderly lizard asked, looking confused, his deep orange eyes blinking rapidly. The younger Argonian was definitely staring now, his drink left forgotten. "What's that?"

"How much gold would you like to have, good sir?"

"How much…gold?"

"This pub is nice, to be sure, but in these times, as bad as the emperor allows your economy to suffer, I do wonder… is there a such thing as too much gold?"

As he asked this, his hand rattled about loudly in his pocket. He produced two handfuls of gold, and lightly placed each fat pile upon the counter-top. His eyes never left the bartender. His finger lightly caressed the septims. The orange eyes of both Argonians flashed, and the traveller saw the intense greediness within both of them.

"I wonder… what would you give, in a pursuit for a life filled with gold?"

"Sir…"

The man held up a hand. The silencing effect worked at once, for the Argonian suddenly opened his mouth, to gasp… and no noise came out. He looked in anger at the hooded man, who kept calm, that smile never leaving his face.

"Greed is your whore, is it not? The whore that you take to bed each night, filthily reciting infatuation for as you indulge in her false pleasures. Because greed knows, doesn't it? It knows that you can never have enough of it, that even when you are without… you simply must obsess with it. Even when pitted at the lowest point of your life, when all the world seems to forget about you, it still bites away at your tender meat. Until one day, you wake up, and you realize this: everything has become a lie. You are lonely because you whored yourself away, not the greed. You traded your Lizardness for something so much less. That is the nature of greed. You filthy whore…"

The man's hands had begun to shake. His eyes were closed, and his face was twitching. He looked like a cage, attempting to hold back a beast within.

The scarlet Argonian stood up now, facing the man.

"You should leave!"

The Silenced bartender nodded vigorously, pushing the gold back towards the man with shaking hands. But the traveller did not hear the Argonian's demand. He sat there, stunned to the spot, his interior fires burning with an intense heat.

"You filthy whores…" he said again, through gritted teeth. "Every day, you live as men who cannot be satisfied by their lusts because lust has become their very life!"

"LEAVE!" the scarlet Argonian demanded, and he actually drew from his side a hidden dagger, silver in nature. The man saw it, and laughed. An insane, though admittedly merry, laugh.

"Filthy whores!" he laughed some more, a twisted smile highlighting his features, his eyes glinting with a form of passionate madness. "Filthy whores, filthy whores!"

"Stop saying that!"

The man moved so fast. A leopard upon the prowl. One moment, the traveller was sitting calmly in place, though shaking a bit, smiling madly as he laughed and insulted the two Argonians. And then, with an unnatural haste, he had suddenly twisted in his chair and propelled himself forward. He flew at the younger Argonian in a flash of maroon, and the Argonian was startled, screaming softly as he the suddenness of the move rooted him to the spot. By the time his senses were set to react, the man had already closed the distance between them, his hand snatching outward and wrapping around the Argonian's own blade hand.

The Argonian felt the dagger snatched as nothing from his grip, and his heart stopped as he realized that the man was holding his own blade against his neck. The bartender stood rooted to the spot, shaking in terror… edging his way slowly to the right. The man felt the vibrations, however, noted the old one's shadow on the wall as it moved… and promptly moved with such master title to the name of acrobatic pleasure.

He spun in place, tossing the dagger into his left hand, and as he spun, he sent his right fit upward. His fist collided with the jaw of the younger Argonian and the force of it sent the lizard flying backwards, with a soft scream as he hit the chair behind him and slammed into the floor. At the same time, the man had twisted to face the silently fleeing bartender, the knife gleaming in left hand, and he promptly reached the hand back, directing his aim and allowing his bodily senses to take control: he was to become the dagger.

The silver knife went flying, a projectile of the darkest fashion, with the darkest intent, and the Argonian, who was still Silenced, could not scream, nor did he have time to acknowledge a reason to do so, before the silver blade penetrated his neck. He grasped at the weapon as it stuck into him, a gaping wound opening up and spilling out his blood as his eyes widened.

The man in the hood smiled, satisfied. Lucien Lachance turned to face the Argonian that he had sent onto the floor. The lizard was rolling about in place, his head spinning, his eyes dazed, and ignoring the struggling bartender who began to stumble about the place behind the bar, unable to gather the strength to remove the knife in his neck, Lucien crouched down beside the dazed Argonian.

"Now, greed, you see, is, as I have said, a whore, as you are. And whores do not know true love. Do not know true passion. They live only to manipulate and lie. The façade is rather poetic, truly. Men indulge because they know no other true sentiment. They desire only _to_ desire. The acknowledgment of greed and lust alone, as personal sins, means more to them than the actual actions tied to the transgressions. You enjoy being greedy, don't you? I can see it inside of you. You enjoy being greedy because it makes you feel rebellious-" The Argonian lashed out a hand, but Lucien was ready for it, catching the striking fist in place with his own right. His left, meanwhile, gripped tightly the Adam's apple of the Argonian, and he began to squeeze. At that very moment, they both heard the loud clamber upon the floor from behind, and both knew that the bartender had finally succumbed to his wounds. A malicious grin spread across Lucien's face, as his dark eyes bored into the unfortunate Argonian was looking terrified, but also who was desperately struggling against his whole, as the murderous man on top of him strangled the very life from his frail body. "-and when you feel rebellious," he continued, as if nothing had happened, "you are able to produce all sorts of wonderful excuses. '_Well, sir_'," he imitated in a mockery of the Breton dialect, " '_I just… I just had inclinations, natural mistakes, that's all. We've all flaws, sir, and we have to learn to overcome them in time_', oh, bull! Isn't it bull!?" He twisted more intensely with the last word, and the loud crunch within the Argonian's neck was satisfying music to his ears. He released the dead Argonian and stood up, bringing his breathing under control.

"If you live your entire life making excuses," he hissed to himself, walking about the tables and in the direction of the private booth in the southwestern corner, where he could hear silent whimpering, "you'll never, _ever_ live." The dagger he produced from within from cloak was his own child, a beautiful steel work, bent and charred black in color, with a fine scarlet hilt and a blue gen set into it. _Anamaria_, he called it.

He walked softly around the wooden framework of the booth, and stepped into the doorway. The two Argonians who had taken to this booth, a male and a female, were both shaking in terror, the male Argonian, who shined a beautiful light blue, holding up an empty ale bottle in defense. Lucien Lachance snorted. He could not help it. It just looked funny.

"Indeed?" he asked the Argonian. His light green companion was terribly trembling into her partner's side.

"Indeed!" the male hissed furiously.

Lucien shrugged, considering Anamaria in hand. "I suppose I have room on my list for two more, eh? After all…" He twisted in place once more, a savage look upon his features as he leapt onto their table, "…I'm on the hunt!"

The Argonian swung the bottle but Lucien cleaved downward, cutting right through the glass, and shards flew everywhere. The two Argonians screamed in horror but their screams meant nothing to him. The hacks that followed, the slashes through bone and tender meat hidden beneath the skin, and the orgasmic spraying of blood…

When Lucien sat alone, between the two bloodied corpses, either of them resting their heads lightly upon his shoulder, he finished off their drinks for himself.

"You know?" he whispered to the female Argonian whose head rested on his left shoulder. "You're kind of cute," he told it, kissing her lightly upon the snout. Her blood… it tasted so good… "And you…" He looked at the other Argonian who rested upon him, the male's left eye slightly hanging out of its socket, and Lucien playfully wiggled his finger about the optic nerve. "…well, I don't seek the physical pleasures of the same gender, so I'll just fancy myself by doing this." Grasping the orange eye tightly in hand, he jerked it forward, and the eye, along with the nerve strand, came free from the rest of the body. Lucien promptly inserted the eye into his mouth, and crunched down hard, savoring the gushiness of the Vitreous humour as it poured into his throat…

_"Lucien…?"_

_ "Mmm-h…"_

_ "Lucien!?"_

_ "Mm… huh… what?"_

_ "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, I really didn't want to, but… there's a noise downstairs."_

_ "W-what!?"_

_ "Yes, there's a noise downstairs…"_

_ The sound of frantic footsteps as they hit the wooden floor. Ragged breathing. The sound of a dagger being unsheathed. _

_ "Please be careful, sweetheart!"_

"It's amazing, isn't it?" he whispered to the corpses, his eyes focused upon the wall outside of the booth, where there hung a large skull that had belonged to a Hackwing, the giant birds who bore beaks that were no different from saws. "It's amazing how things like this make you remember things you don't want to. Voices, in the head, voices! Voices… I don't like the voices, but they come anyway… they whisper things to me. But I'm no madman! I know they're memories, and I know the memories that they're involved with. It matters little, it really doesn't. It's useless to think that a man can dream his entire life and bring reality to dreams that are in no way his desire… and then again…" He stabbed his dagger once more into the male Argonian's head, viciously retracting it and then inserting the blade once more. "_Then again, he just can't learn to stop running from it, can he!?"_ Stab! "_He tries to hide himself from it!"_ Stab! "_But there is NO hiding from it!"_ Stab!

His arm was soaked with the blood of Argonians, the dense fabric pressured underneath the power of the thick liquid. It was cool. So very cool. He held up his bloodstained arm, and considered it for quite some time. It was a work of art on its own, poetry with a physical flesh. To consider just how beautiful it could truly be…

"Their blood is orange-red," he noted aloud. "Orange-red…red-orange…"

And then he began to piece it together in his mind. It was difficult at first, but well worth it.

_Blood is orange-red, they're dead, they're dead,_

_ Blood is orange-red, they're frightfully dead,_

_ I wonder what it feels like, for them, to be dead,_

_ I hope it hurts… I hope it's painful…_

No! NO! That would not do at all. It was too simple, too- wait…of course… _simplicity_. That was what made it perfect. There was no bull-cockery thrown into the batter, no falseness or passionate lie. They _were_ dead! Stone dead, cold dead, rotting and stinking! There were no beautiful words that were _needed_ to describe the situation. That would only cheapen it. Poetry did not _have_ to be his strong suit, because the poetry was through action, not words. Every time he stabbed them, he produced a perfect a perfect iambic pentameter: _if you would put the knife inside the skull_… _if you would put the knife inside the skull_… _if you would put the knife inside the skull_…

The more and more he repeated the words, the more and more he came to realize the simple truth of it all: that passion did not have roots into what common society normalized. You did things because you could not hide from your desires. That only made you weak. If you hid from the mere truth, then the truth would ultimately find you, and punish you accordingly for trying to hide from it.

"If you would put the knife inside the skull," Lucien recited calmly, digging the blade of his dagger deeply into the female Argonian's brain. It made the most pleasurable squelching noises. Blood dribbled out from the hole as he burrowed down. "If you would put the knife inside the skull… If you would put the knife inside the skull…"

A strip of flesh as he upended the blade end, and part of the top of her head went flying away as he flicked it off in the manner of ridding himself of a bothersome fly. There was the sky, light brown in color, and the most awful smell emitted from the wound. He took it in deeply, savoring the odor.

"Argonian for dinner?" he asked her male companion's body. "I haven't eaten in _days_…"

He could see her brain sticking through the hole in the skull that he had created.

"Brain food," he smirked, silently giggling in his mind at his own joke. He began to carve deep, taking piece by piece in small amounts. Brain, in essence, was far too soft for his liking, not tender enough. Not like human flesh. Human flesh tasted beefy. This, on the other hand, was far from his liking. "YOU STUPID WHORE!" he screamed furiously, pushing her roughly against the wall. The knife flew through the air and he inserted the blade deeply into her stomach. Blood flew up and hit him in the face, but he only licked at it, his anger getting the better of him as he flew into a mad frenzy. "YOU STUPID, WORTHLESS-" He stabbed her. Again and again, he stabbed her. He was furious with her. How could she refuse to feed him a meal worth putting in his mouth? This was an insult to him! She had no right denying him a pleasurable meal!

And then he stopped, leaning back against her male mate. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply as he massaged his forehead. _Alright, Lucien, calm down now…calm down…_

"Sorry," he muttered, rather awkwardly, not wanting to look at her. He felt embarrassed with his less than professional manner. "I-… I'm sorry, you know… I don't mean to- to be like… well, to be fair, you _made_ me- oh, forget it."

She said nothing in response.

He stood up, crackling his neck loudly as he hid his dagger once within his cloak. He took out a single septim from his pocket, and flicked it loudly onto their table. "Compensation," he muttered, before exiting the booth and leaving the corpses to themselves.

He stepped into the kitchen in the back, where, concealed within fine Blackwood cabinets there was stored a great quantity of food. Well-preserved jerky and vegetables were stored away in one drawer, while fresh, clay mugs meant for gathering water were stored in another. He scooted as many supplies as he could into a small bag that he produced from his cloak, and then, when he had taken his fill, carried this smaller bag back into the main part of the pub, where he deposited it into his large duffle. Throwing the duffle over his shoulder, he cast a glance towards the great pile of money he had left on the counter. He reached out, and picked up one simple, olden septim, and promptly pocketed it. Then, gazing around at the bodies that he had laid broken about the room, he nodded his head.

"Good evening," he bid them, and he turned away, heading straight for the door, leaving the pile of gold and the bodies where they were meant to be left. A smile darkened his features as he left, stepping out into the great marshland before him. He softly stroked his well-groomed, gelled hair back, as he lowered his hood. The rain was falling now, so very lightly, and he wanted to feel the power that Tamriel's sky had over him. The rain went about unquestioned and unhindered by the mortals below. They were subject to its presence, to its command that it simply must exist… that it simply must be there, to shroud them with its touch. He was like the rain, and the snow: hated, by all and himself, and adored for its power that he displayed over the denizens of this world. He was in hiding. Hiding from himself.

And he had a job to do.

"I will find you, JerShan," he hissed to himself, in a rather snake-like way as the Argonian hunter's face swam into his mind. "You think you can run forever, but you cannot. I will hunt you down, and oh… the things I will do…"

He felt an almost sexual pleasure rise up inside of him as he thought of the things he truly would do. The flash of steel from his dagger and the erotic spray of blood…

JerShan the Argonian hunter was a marked man. And Lucien Lachance was all too intent upon the collection.

_If you would put the knife inside the skull…. _


End file.
